Lundin Barents Sea Oil Find May Hold 145 Million Barrels

By Mikael Holter -
Oct 2, 2013

Lundin Petroleum AB (LUPE), the Swedish oil
explorer focused on Norway, said its Gohta discovery in the
Arctic Barents Sea may hold as much as 145 million barrels of
crude and 545 billion cubic feet of gas.

Tests showed a flow rate of about 4,300 barrels of oil a
day, the company said today in a statement. The discovery,
announced last month, is Lundin’s first Barents Sea oil find off
Norway’s northern tip and the first successful test of carbonate
reservoirs from the Permian period on the Norwegian shelf.

“The discovery has proved the Permian carbonate play,”
Ashley Heppenstall, chief executive officer of the Stockholm-based company, said in the statement. “As well as delineating
the discovery, we will now look to drill similar exploration
prospects in adjoining licenses.”

Gohta, located 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Statoil
ASA (STL)’s Snohvit gas field, follows a find by OMV AG (OMV) at Wisting,
Norway’s northernmost discovery, which holds as much as 160
million barrels of oil and 40 billion cubic feet of gas. The two
finds may boost confidence in Norway’s Arctic after Statoil
delayed its Johan Castberg development there in June because of
rising costs, tax increases and lower resource estimates.

Share Performance

Lundin fell 0.2 percent to 137.9 kronor in Stockholm
trading as of 11:52 a.m. local time. Det Norske climbed as much
as 2.9 percent to 85.7 kroner in Oslo, the biggest intraday gain
in almost four months. Noreco slumped as much as 14 percent
after publishing a production update for September.

The location of the discovery between Snohvit and Johan
Castberg gives it “a high likelihood for development,” Alex
Gheorghe, an analyst at RS Platou Markets AS, said in an e-mailed note to clients. “You can expect more excitement as the
discovery proves a new Permian oil play in the region.”

Platou estimated the discovery’s net-asset-value impact at
0.5 krone to 1 krone a share for Det Norske and 0.15 krone for
Noreco.